Concept

What are Categories?

Categories are a useful system of easily putting articles into useful groups through which visitors can find articles and related information easily. They are simple and effective and required for every page in the main system.

What should be categorised?

Categorization in the Lexicanum is carried out flexibly. This means that technically any article can go in any category, or even make new ones. To prevent a mass of loosely related categories, a list has been set out by moderators at Categories in an easily read format. This means that if an article needs a category which doesn't exist, the user should ask an admin/sysop to create it for them.

Category Pages

Category pages are where the list of articles in the category is stored and displayed. They should have a brief one or two sentences explaining the contents of the category but should not contain any great detail. The words themselves are there only as a guide to the contents, not as a replacement for any of the articles. Example:Category:Space Marines

Category Trees

Categories themselves should also be categorised. This happens in the same way as categorising articles (see below) and enables people to search over a wider range of information by moving up the category list. This concept can be visualised as a tree, with the top-most category being the base of the tree and the subsequent categories expanding out into the branches of the tree. Note that you only need to list the category immediately above the category you are editing, not every one up to the top-level category.

Useful notes to Authors

Every article, category, image and template should be categorised

You only need to categorise to the next level up, not all the way to the top level

If you have questions about categories, ask a sysop/admin to advise you

How To

Allocate articles to categories

Articles can be allocated into categories by adding the following to any article:

[[Category:X]]

For the purposes of the Lexicanum, all category code should go at the very end of the article.

Link to a category

Occasionally a direct link to a category is required. To achieve this the following should be written.

[[:Category:X]]

Note that the only difference is the addition of a : preceding the category name. An article can be allocated to several categories, but it should be categorized at least once.

The effect of categorising is to put a small box at the bottom of the article (see the bottom of this page for an example) with each of the categories written as a link for the visitor to click on.

Listing with a different name

It is possible that you would like to categorise an article with a different name to that which was created. This is most often seen when using names when articles are created starting with the first name while they are categorised by the surname. To achieve an alphabetical arrangement you need this syntax:

[[Category:X|Y]]

Thus this article would be arranged under "Y", not under its title in category "X". An example is:

[[Category:Special Characters|Abaddon, Ezekyle]]

In the category the article will then appear under "A", but with its original title "Ezekyle Abaddon".

Allocating categories to other categories

When categorising categories the same procedure can be followed. An example is Category:Imperium. The following code put it with Category Species and Factions:

[[Category:Species and Factions]]

The result is that "Imperium" becomes a sub category of "Species and factions". This is shown in the Species and Factions category as a separate section to the articles name subcategories. Thus, every article categorized under "Imperium" is automatically categorized under "Species and factions" too.

Note: Categorising templates is identical to the above except the category is always [[Category:Templates]] and images are covered under Help:Images.